Effects of reminiscence and life review on late‐life depression: a meta‐analysis

Abstract

Reminiscence and life review are potentially effective treatments for depressive symptoms in the elderly and may thus offer a valuable alternative to psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy. Especially in non-institutionalised elderly people-who often have untreated depression-it may prove to be an effective, safe and acceptable form of treatment. Randomized trials with sufficient statistical power are necessary to confirm the results of this study.

Characteristics of effective psychological treatments of depression: a metaregression analysis

“…Guided self-help and psychoeducational treatment of depression is also effective and has effect sizes comparable to those of other treatments (Cuijpers, 1997(Cuijpers, , 1998. In addition, in older adults, reminiscence and life review have effects comparable to those of other treatments (Bohlmeijer, Smit, & Cuijpers, 2003).…”

How to understand and improve older people’s self-management of wellbeing

“…Existing interventions commonly focus on how to cope with specific problems such as depression (e.g. Bohlmeijer et al 2003) or loneliness (e.g. Stevens 2001).…”

The effects of reminiscence therapy on psychological well‐being, depression, and loneliness among the institutionalized aged

“…Furthermore, reminiscence therapy is successful in improving one's comprehension skills and in boosting self-esteem, to ease the feeling of depression and hopelessness, and to enhance self-integration. Many studies point out the positive effects of reminiscence therapy and highlight its effectiveness in the easing of depressed feelings (Bohlmeijer et al, 2003;Hsieh and Wang, 2003;Husaini et al, 2004;Wang, 2005;Pinquart et al, 2007), it is also known to be beneficial to an aged persons psychological well-being (Tatchell and Jordan, 2004;McKee et al, 2005;Zauszniewski et al, 2006), it assists to ease feelings of loneliness , and can ameliorate negative emotions and anxiety (Chou et al, 2008). Reminiscence therapy does have a role in the maintenance of self-esteem (Lin et al, 2003;Chao et al, 2006;Nomura and Hashimoto, 2006), self-value (Baker, 1985), better coping skills (Nugent, 1995), increased satisfaction with life (Cook, 1998;Lin et al, 2003), enhanced self-integration (Stinson and Kirk, 2006;Zauszniewski et al, 2006), enhancement of functional activities (Kovach and Henschel, 1996;Woods et al, 2005;Zauszniewski et al, 2006), improved social functions and activities (King, 1982;Cook, 1991), prevention of behavioral problems (Kovach and Henschel, 1996), and in the effective care of the aged person (Shellman, 2007).…”